SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb 18, 2025--
Archer Aviation (NYSE: ACHR) received FAA certification to launch its pilot training academy. This certification, referred to as Part 141, is granted to a flight school by the FAA, signifying that it is a formally recognized and regulated institution for pilot training.
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With this certificate, Archer can now train and qualify pilots as part of its newly launched training academy, with plans to build a pipeline of pilots in preparation for its planned commercial air taxis services with its Midnight aircraft.
Archer has now received the third certificate required by the FAA for it to launch air taxi operations when Midnight receives its Type Certification. It previously received its Part 135 Air Carrier & Operator Certificate from the FAA in June of 2024 and prior to that, in February of 2024, its Part 145 certification. Part 142 is the fourth and final certificate Archer will be pursuing—for which the application has already begun.
The FAA granted Archer its Part 141 certificate during a ceremony at Archer’s flight test facility in Salinas, CA. At the ceremony, Archer’s Chief Operating Officer of UAM, Tom Anderson, and Chief People Officer, Tosha Perkins, were joined by Thom Holden, Manager of the FAA’s San Jose Flight Standards District Office, and David Pease, an FAA Aviation Safety Inspector.
“Thanks to the hard work of the Archer team and the FAA, Archer now has its Part 141 certificate in hand—yet another step towards our commercial launch. I look forward to seeing the results of this effort in the form of talented pilots who can one day be at the controls of our Midnight aircraft. The FAA continues to be an invaluable partner as we work together toward the safe entry of air taxis into the national airspace,” said Archer Chief Operating Officer, UAM Tom Anderson.
Archer’s goal is to transform urban travel, replacing 60–90-minute commutes by car with estimated 10–20-minute electric air taxi flights that are safe, sustainable, low noise and cost-competitive with ground transportation. Archer’s Midnight is a piloted, four-passenger aircraft designed to perform rapid back-to-back flights with minimal charge time between flights.
About Archer
Archer is designing and developing the key enabling technologies and aircraft necessary to power the future of aviation. To learn more, visit www.archer.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward looking statements regarding Archer’s business plans and expectations, including statements regarding the timing of Archer’s development, certification and commercialization of its aircraft and related service offerings. These forward-looking statements are only predictions and may differ materially from actual results due to a variety of factors. The risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from the results predicted are more fully detailed in Archer’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q, available at www.sec.gov. In addition, please note that any forward-looking statements contained herein are based on assumptions that Archer believes to be reasonable as of the date of this press release. Archer undertakes no obligation to update these statements as a result of new information or future events.
Source: Archer Aviation
Text: ArcherIR
Archer Aviation team members with representatives from the FAA (Photo: Business Wire)
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee is scheduled to execute Tony Carruthers on Thursday after his attorneys questioned whether the state's lethal injection drugs had expired and courts denied requests to test DNA and fingerprint evidence or to deem him mentally incompetent.
Carruthers, 57, was sentenced to death after being found guilty of the 1994 kidnappings and murders of Marcellos Anderson; his mother, Delois Anderson; and Frederick Tucker. He was forced to represent himself at trial after repeatedly complaining about court-appointed attorneys and threatening to harm several of them.
There was no physical evidence tying Carruthers to the killings, and he was convicted primarily on the basis of testimony from people who claimed to have heard him confess to or discuss the crimes.
They include a man who was later revealed to be a police informant and told media he was paid for his testimony. A co-defendant, James Montgomery, was originally sentenced to death along with Carruthers but was later resentenced and released from prison in 2015, according to court filings.
Authorities said Marcellos Anderson was a drug dealer, and Carruthers was trying to take over the illegal drug trade in their Memphis neighborhood. Carruthers' attorneys have said their client's “paranoia and delusions” prevented him from being able to cooperate with court-appointed counsel, but the judge viewed this behavior as willful.
The Tennessee Supreme Court said on appeal that Carruthers’ actions before the trial jury were offensive and self-destructive but the situation in which he found himself was one of his own making. If the execution goes forward as scheduled, Carruthers will be the first person to be executed after being forced to represent himself in more than a century, according to a clemency petition to Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee.
In the petition, Carruthers' attorneys argue that the reason he was sentenced to death was because a medical examiner testified the victims were buried alive, going into excruciating detail for the jury. He later withdrew that claim and subsequent experts have said it was false.
Carruthers' attorneys have tried to show that he is incompetent to be executed. They claim in court filings that Carruthers believes the government is bluffing about executing him in order to coerce him into accepting a plea deal that exists only in his mind. That way, Carruthers believes, the government can avoid paying him what he thinks are millions of dollars it owes him. He is convinced that his own attorneys are part of a conspiracy against him and refuses to even speak with them, according to court filings.
The number of executions in the U.S. surged from 25 in 2024 to 47 last year, driven by a sharp increase in Florida. That state carried out 19 executions in 2025, up from one the previous year, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. So far this year, four states have executed 13 people, and 11 other executions are scheduled including one Thursday evening in Florida.
It’s not unusual to see several executions over a short period of time. Last year, four people were executed over three days in March in Oklahoma, Florida, Louisiana and Arizona. Another five people were executed over a week in October in Arizona, Mississippi, Missouri, Florida and Indiana, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Tennessee began a new round of executions last year after a three-year pause following the discovery that the state was not properly testing lethal injection drugs for purity and potency.
An independent review later found that none of the drugs prepared for the seven inmates executed in Tennessee since 2018 had been fully tested. The state attorney general’s office also conceded in court that two of the people most responsible for overseeing Tennessee’s lethal injection drugs “ incorrectly testified ” under oath that officials were testing the chemicals as required.
This Tennessee Department of Correction photo shows inmate Tony Carruthers. (Tennessee Department of Correction via AP)
